( www.ford.com) is
working with a robot
named RUTH, one might
jump to the conclusion
that a sort of mobile
Roxxxy might be part of
a future option package
— the Charlie Sheen
edition, perhaps.

Fortunately, it’s nothing
that creepy. The name
derives from Robotized Unit for Tactility and
Haptics which is not quite tortured enough to win
a coveted Bloated Labyrinthine Acronyms for Hype
award ... but close. RUTH is also not particularly
feminine. She is good at twiddling knobs, flipping
switches, and adjusting air vents, however. It turns
out that she has been helping engineers at Ford’s
European Advance Research Centre in Aachen,
Germany to develop the interiors for almost all
current and future Ford models.

In olden days, designers would actually put
humans behind the wheel to determine which
controls and dial settings were pleasing to most
people. Human preferences have now been stored
as digital data, and RUTH sits in the driver’s seat
and decides if she’s comfy or not by measuring
things like friction, roughness, softness, and
temperature, and comparing these measurements
with the consumer feedback database. So, while
she does help make you comfortable, there’s
nothing personal about it. Sorry, Charlie.

Bot Performs Reverse Vasectomies
If you do feel the urge to merge your private parts with the world of robotics, consider a new
procedure developed
at the University of
Florida ( www.ufl.edu)
that allows urologists
to, um, cut off about
20 minutes of surgery

time when performing a vasectomy reversal. And
it’s not just a matter of, um, shaving off a few
minutes. At least in the short term, the robotic
procedure results in higher sperm counts ( 54
million vs. 11 million, if anyone’s counting). In
addition, surgeons who perform reverse
vasectomies typically use microscopes to watch
what they’re doing, and the new technique
provides “less discomfort for some surgeons who
would otherwise stand or sit with their backs bent
for extended periods over a microscope.”
If discomfort translates into slips of the scalpel,
by all means let’s make sure the doc is deliriously
comfortable. One drawback is cost, as the robotic
procedure can run you $3,000 more than a
standard one. But after all, your car isn’t the only
thing you really want to be in good hands.

Another Eye in the Sky

Corporate and military bigwigs at the
Heron delivery ceremony.

We hear a great deal about heavily armed UAVs, e.g., the Predator, operating in
Afghanistan, but quite a few are built for missions
other than combat. Such is the Heron system, built
by Israel Aerospace Industries (Royal Australian Air
Force) and recently adopted by the Royal
Australian Air Force ( www.air force.gov.au) for
intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR)
missions. The system includes an aircraft, mission
payloads, a ground control station, spare parts,
and ground support equipment. The Heron itself is
a medium altitude long endurance (MALE) bird
that can remain airborne for 30+ hours, cruise at
30,000 ft, and carry about 250 kg (550 lb) of
payload. Cruise speed wasn’t specified, but it has
an operational range of “several hundred
kilometers.” Other specs include a 16. 6 m ( 54. 5 ft)
wingspan and a takeoff weight of 1,200 kg ( 2,645
lb). The system is slated to operate for a year, with
an optional extension for two more years.